(Image: Revival)
While we sort out the real estate dealings and corporate grocery priorities behind the planned closure this week of the Broadway Whole Foods, there are a few smaller Capitol Hill retail losses to contend with.
The Revival vintage and fashion shop is closing on Broadway — but not because a long awaited affordable housing development is ready to dig in on the block.
Owner Ashley Busacca her decade of doing business on Broadway is ending as she is expecting a second child and ready to kiss the uncertainty of small retail in the neighborhood goodbye. “It’s been a wild ride,” Busacca said.
“We feel so lucky to have spent the last 11 years with such lovely and inspiring customers and YOU, our makers. Revival is my ultimate dream job, and it has exceeded all my expectations and surprises,” the Revival goodbye message reads. “I have been the most driven, inspired, humbled, terrified, and proud. This experience has changed me as a person, I am forever grateful.”
Not a landmark
Revival has been part of Broadway since 2015 when Busacca first opened on an upper floor of her building before moving to street level.
In 2021, the landmarks board rejected protections for the 119-year-old gabled parapets and semicircular bay windows of Broadway’s Wilshire Building clearing the way for the planned development.
The Broadway Urbaine project has been planned as “100% Publicly-Funded Affordable Housing” and will rise seven stories with 95 new apartments, five ground floor live/work units, and retail space replacing the 118-year-old, two-story commercial building currently home to Revival, the former Jai Thai restaurant, and a Mud Bay pet supply store location, plus 14 upper floor apartment units.
Revival’s closure, Busacca says, has nothing to do with the redevelopment plans which remain on ice for the block.
The final day of business at Revival is planned for July 1st. In the meantime, you can stop by 233 Broadway E for a going out of business sale.
Meanwhile, another cranny of Broadway retail has also made a change. CHS reported here in 2022 as Capitol Hill goth shop legend The Cramp returned from the dead with a new space upstairs inside the Broadway Alley building. The dark fashion shop has shuttered while its street level sibling The New York Xchange rocks on at 225 Broadway E.
Fortunately, Capitol Hill’s diversity of retail spaces remains wild and woolly enough that there are still shops CHS has never covered over the years. Go seek out spots like Faris or the Little Store and tell us what we’re missing.
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Bad news. Since Jai Thai closed, the doorways of that building have become a druggie hangout. Another empty storefront won’t help the problem.
Will you quit with your classism already
Caphiller did not say anything untrue. Is it classist to notice that the doorways are indeed often full of people smoking tin foil, or is pointing it out the classist part?
Chi Chi appears engaged in the “I don’t see poverty” style of activism where we pretend it doesn’t exist and claim the moral high ground.
Too bad. Cute shop, bunch of local crafts. I could usually find a gift there but it wasn’t a standby – always kind of wondered how they made rent. Best of luck to her with the new kiddo.
Every time a business closes in the hill I get sad. We need to be making the hill more attractive to businesses. Less rents, more local shopping.
More open than close now.
Covid is over and this is not a right to work for less state.
Start making businesses more attractive to workers
Not having to deal with druggies would be a good start.
Another historic building that makes the neighborhood and filled with small local businesses gives way to another hideous cardboard box building.
We need affordable housing like no other in this corridor
No! This was my favorite retail shop on Broadway. I’ll really miss them. Their window displays were always great, as was their locally made jewelry. Ugh, such a bummer.
The shitmess in Broadway Hill Park sure doesn’t help things.
No, it doesn’t. There is an ongoing problem with various degrees of vagrancy in that park. At the moment it’s free of camps and addicts, but that won’t last long.
Making it 10+ years anywhere with a small business is incredible! Congrats Ashley and best of luck on your next adventure:)